R10 — Belgian GP
Predictions Results
163 pts
| # | Question | My Pick | 2× | Pts Available | Pts Earned |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Predict the podium | Verstappen · Leclerc · Hamilton | 2× | 72 | 76 |
| 02 | Pole position | Kimi Antonelli | — | 12 | 12 |
| 03 | Who qualifies highest (Bortoleto vs Colapinto)? | Gabriel Bortoleto | — | 10 | 10 |
| 04 | Will Racing Bulls get both cars into Q3? | No | — | 15 | 15 |
| 05 | Fastest pitstop (team) | Red Bull Racing | — | 25 | — |
| 06 | How many classified finishers? | 19 | — | 20 | 20 |
| 07 | Which team scores the most points (Red Bull vs McLaren)? | McLaren | — | 15 | — |
| 08 | Most positions gained by a driver in the race? | >10 | — | 30 | 30 |
| 09 | Fastest lap of the race | Kimi Antonelli | — | 10 | — |
| 10 | Will we see a new Belgian GP winner? | No | — | 15 | — |
| TOTAL | 224 | 163 |
Final: 163 pts · 50% accuracy (5/10 clean hits: Q2, Q3, Q4, Q6, Q8) — the season’s best round by a wide margin.
Q1 podium: two of three legs landed. Leclerc, called in the exact P2 slot, returned 24 — his 12 payout doubled for position, the same mechanic that paid Hamilton 24 off a 12 at Silverstone. Verstappen hit the rostrum in the wrong slot (picked P1, finished P3) for face value 14. The Hamilton leg missed by one place at P4. Base 38, doubled to 76 by the multiplier — which is why earned exceeds the 72 “available”, since the nominal column prices the three payouts flat and doesn’t carry the exact-slot bonus.
Notes
Pre-race decisions:
- 2× on the podium (Q1) for the fourth straight round — placed on the only aggregate question for its EV edge (~14–15 combined vs ~6–7 for the best binary), accepting the variance.
- Took the Mercedes favourite at pole (Q2, Antonelli 12) — a deliberate correction of the R09 verdict that fading Mercedes on payout grounds had cost four correlated questions.
- Still excluded both Mercedes from the podium — Antonelli (8) and Russell (5) were graded the most probable rostrum-getters but priced too low; the sheet backed Verstappen (14, Spa specialist), Leclerc (12, Silverstone winner) and Hamilton (10, our boosted driver).
- Q8 (>10 positions gained, 30) flagged in advance as “the value call of the sheet”; Q4 flagged as the lowest-conviction pick; Q5 repeated the Red Bull pitstop punt on “process over the one-race miss.”
Result:
- 163 is a season high by 64 points — the previous best was 99 at R02, and the sheet had not cleared 100 all year. 50% accuracy is also a season best (prior high 40% at R08). Six of ten questions returned points.
- The 2× was placed optimally. Q1 added 38 over its unmultiplied base; the best alternative target, Q8, would have added 30, and Q6 only 20. Un-multiplied the sheet scores 125, so the aggregate-podium policy is now four-for-four on being the correct home for the multiplier.
- Q8 was the sheet’s masterstroke — 30 pts, its biggest non-podium earner. The pre-race note called the exact mechanism: “a fast car starting deep after a Q1 exit/penalty.” Hadjar started P21 after his qualifying time was struck and recovered to P6 — 15 places, comfortably clearing >10. The reasoning didn’t just land, it predicted the shape of the event.
- Q6 was precise, not lucky. The note argued for “exactly 3 retirements from 22 starters” against the market’s modal 17 finishers. Stroll, Pérez and Russell retired; 19 classified — 20 pts on a call the field had priced as unlikely.
- The R09 correction paid — partially. Backing Antonelli for pole returned 12, reversing one of the four Mercedes-fade misses from Silverstone. But the fade still cost us twice through a single correlated event: Antonelli won from pole, which simultaneously blanked the third podium leg and flipped Q10 — his maiden Spa victory is by definition a new Belgian GP winner. Two questions, 25 points, one outcome. This is the same structural flaw R09 diagnosed, only narrowed rather than fixed.
- Hamilton P4, +17.245 — the third podium leg finished fourth for the second round running (Norris P4 at Silverstone). Both times the leg was a defensible pick beaten by one place.
- Q7’s accepted risk materialised exactly as written. The note took McLaren on two-car scoring while flagging “a big Verstappen day at his best circuit” as the loss condition. Verstappen P3 (15) + Hadjar P6 (8) gave Red Bull 23; Piastri P5 (10) + Norris P7 (6) gave McLaren 16. Sound logic, known risk, it hit.
- Q5 is now 0-for-2 at 25 pts a round. The Red Bull pitstop punt lost to Ferrari here after losing to Mercedes at Silverstone — 50 points of availability burned across two rounds on a prior we cannot verify from any data in the project. The EV case is theoretically defensible but rests entirely on reputation; recommend dropping to the priced favourite or skipping the value play here until there’s pitstop data to support it.
- Q9 missed for the second straight round. Fastest lap went to Norris (1:48.890) on a recovery run from a P13 grid, not to Antonelli in the fastest car. Two rounds of evidence now point the same way: FL comes from a car with track position to make up and nothing to lose, not from the leader — worth re-weighting the model.
- Q3 and Q4 both clean. Bortoleto qualified P9 to Colapinto’s P13 (10 pts), and Racing Bulls split — Lindblad P8 into Q3, Lawson P11 out in Q2 — validating the lowest-conviction pick on the sheet for 15.
- Season predictions total: 879 pts (R01: 97 · R02: 99 · R03: 87 · R04: 90 · R05: 28 · R06: 88 · R07: 56 · R08: 78 · R09: 93 · R10: 163).
- Verdict: the best sheet of the season, and for once the earnings came from the reasoning rather than the multiplier bailing it out — Q8 and Q6 were both contrarian calls against the market’s mode that landed on the stated mechanism. The one systematic leak remains Mercedes exposure: every round Antonelli sweeps a weekend, the payout-driven fade costs multiple correlated questions at once. Q2 shows the fix works when applied; extend it to the podium and the “new winner” style binaries.